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DreamHon: Undefeated, Undying, Untouchable - Recap Week 3

Third week of competition in the DreamHon Summer Championship is over, sort of. A couple of teams took the week off due to postponement or even forfeits, but most of the games have been played, a couple of teams are still undefeated and a couple of players have risen above their peers. Let's revisit week three.

For some reason MuFC has been in this category almost every single week. The Malaysian team delivers one thrilling match after another, but the outcome is not always good for the SEA team. They have been in here twice and both times they end up being the defeated team, after heartbreaking comebacks, throws or matches.

This match started off as a complete rout. Vitriolic outpicked the Malaysian team getting the strong Nymphora/Pebbles combination in addition to strong solo-laning heroes like Valkryie and Plague Rider. The whole match lasted for only 25 minutes and in those minutes Vitriolic just destroyed the Malaysian powerhouse team. Respected players like Nick_Oks` or Kiddo` made rookie mistakes and vtrl punished them relentlessly. In the end Nick_Oks` left with a 1/10/6 stats getting completely obliterated on that middle lane.

After the laning phase of map two it looked like a very short affair. Vitriolic powered through that early phase, getting a good lead early on. What followed was an intense match that went back and forth, with team fights, buybacks and a support hero playing the main role. It was vtrl's game to lose: they had the lead, they were in control and they had the better farm, but for some reason they couldn't push up the base towers. Three attempts failed with MuFC defending in marvelous fashion. After those defends Nymphora had the presence of mind to use the Teleport ability so MuFC could counter-push and pile up pressure through buildings being down. The game featured unique circumstances like a counter genocide, with vtrl picking off the team in their jungle, attempting to use that won team fight to push up the base and ultimately getting fought back with a genocide coming out for MuFC. In the end, MuFC could use the great defensive stance for counters that applied a lot of pressure on vtrl's base, which was ultimately too much to handle for the international squad.

So it came down to the ace match and once again MuFC allowed vtrl to pick up the Nymphora/Pebbles combination, that stomped them in that first game. Like the first game, the Malaysians did not stand a chance against the agressive style that this combo allows, giving away that important match a little bit too easily.

Other notable matches:

Cats Gaming vs. QoP - Not televised, but still a very entertaining match. Showing off some unconventional heroes like Bombadier, Chronos, Maliken, Empath or Puppet Master. Great engagements, nice comebacks, a very nice set of matches.

Teams of the Week

TmRy

Drafter

Carry

Suicide

Support/Jungle

Support/Jungle

swindlemelonzz

Reelo

getviolator

ZfreeK

Fittske

They shiny team of all-stars from America and Sweden has done it. They are one of two teams with a flawless record not allowing a single map to slip away. The experienced team around Captain swindlemelonzz proved to be a force to be reckoned with in Group D and also for the rest of the tournament. They haven't been in the spotlight so far, because their opponents were fairly unknown. In the first week they rallied past Grabblords, week two gave them a forfeit win against QsQ 1, but their shining moment came yesterday. In the battle of undefeated teams they had the first challenge so far, against iLight. They not only won that match, but they streamrolled iLight in a very dominant fashion. Every piece of the puzzle came together with swindlemelonzz good play and drafting, getviolator playing terrific on the suicide lane, with ZfreeK and Fittske getting ganks and supportitive actions in on time and Reelo farming like no tomorrow. They will get tested next week against ClanMilk, but so far, they look extremely impressive.

FackyouKurdi

Drafter

Carry

Allrounder

Allrounder

Allrounder

ShiZzor

`Korzz

Extab

Kvitulf

korzz

The suprise team of the tournament. Going into this event, nobody had even heard of these guys, but now they are in the esteemed club of undefeated teams themselves. On the path to that undefeated record they won against the relatively unknown team of QoP, to move on against Russia. Cats Gaming, runner-up of the CIS DreamHon Qualifier, fell victim to the team, who then crushed the DreamHon participant Team GA in extremely dominant fashion. They had good opponents, good matches and they are a team to watch and follow, they could pull out an upset here and there, which could lead them to the playoffs. MuFC, vtrl and Tt eSports are still ahead, but they can rise to the challenge and stand their ground.

ClanMilk

Drafter

Carry

Allrounder

Support

Initiator

Kookiez

CaKes

Mookiez

Kreamz

Moiravus

They have been here last week, they are here again, they are here to stay. ClanMilk has not only been undefeated so far, but they have had an opening schedule that saw them against two of the three favorites to win the group. After a 2-1 victory over the new Trademark eSports team and a walkover against easy breezey, they streamrolled the reigning DreamHon champion in an incredible manner. Every element of the team worked like a well-oiled machine, every player did his part, everything just clicked. From Kookiez being a dominating farmer and hard carry, through CaKeS driving H4nn1 and fnatic nuts with great ganks, to Creamz playing the support role like an absolute expert, everything worked. They could be here next week, they can be here for a long time, no consistency issues anymore, no confidence issues anymore, they are one of the strongest teams out there right now.

Other great teams:

compLexity Gaming : I can't exclude coL from this ranking. They just tore through every opponent so far, defeating the new It's Gosu, the Brazilians from Dynasty and their fans from SOSH. With FIT and iMpunity two teams are still in their way, but the new roster looks extremely focussed and incredibly strong.

Vitriolic : Another of those undefeated teams, a team that holds all the trump cards in their hands. They not only won every match, but they won against Tt eSports and MuFC, arguably the strongest adversaries in the group. They hold the tie breaking advantage over them and their remaining scheduled doesn't seem to be really tough.

Individual Awards

Individual Award recipient

Reelo

TmRy

18/0/8

Pure dominance

It was his game, actually it was his series. The Swedish carry Reelo has been an outstanding player ever since he entered the scene with HoNPortal about a year ago. He is not always the most talked about player, but he performs constantly on a very high level. This series is pushing him into the spotlight, just because the stats are too good to look over. The first game he dominated the middle lane, he got the Bloodlust and he farmed like crazy, bringing him to a 14/1/5 on Silhouette. The second match was even better with him getting the Immortal Streak, 100 creep kills after 13 minutes and a GPM of 652 (Average of 596 in the series) at the end of the match. The only thing missing was the annihilation, which was possible but prevented by the dot of Pyromancer, that got the last hit.

Individual Award recipient

ShiZzor

FackyouKurdi

12/5/8

Taking over, after a struggle

What makes a player good? What makes him great? The ability to farm, remain calm and composed even after a bad early game, and the ability to take over a match, those are attributes of greatness in this game. Players like Era and Haxxeren showed us several times, that a true carry can play through hard times and struggles and still be a factor. ShiZzor might not be on that level yet, but his performance on the second map against GA was really good. His lane was not doing well, it got ganked a lot and he fell to a 2/4 and 3/5 statline early in the game. Without kills and without participating in team ganks, he pulled himself out of that misery. He farmed the jungle, he farmed the lanes and he took the opportunities for kills, when they presented themselves. He didn't give up, he kept his head in the game and kept his cool throughout the duration of the game. Ultimately he finished 12/5 with 557 GPM, carrying his team to the third straight victory.

Individual Award recipient

Kreamz

ClanMilk

3/1/9

The support you dream(z) off

Kreamz is the standout of a bunch of outstanding players of ClanMilk this week. His performance, especially on that first map, was a showing of greatness. He did everything you can ask for from a supporter. He gave his Draconis the ultimate farm by keeping the jungle stacked at all time, he game in for ganks a the right time and he gave his team awesome map vision, while keeping fnatic's vision in check. Things like that get overlooked most of the times, because everyone is looking at the kills, the stats and the GPM (like I did above), but supporters bring your carries in position for those stats. Kreamz even went above and beyond that ingame, as he revealed in the interview. He planned the strategy, he went through replays of fnatic and manufactured a gameplan that would put them into the right spots at the right times. The rout of fnatic clearly proves that his efforts have been worth it.

Other individual achievements:

Parakletos - QoP : Last week he had Scout with 19/0, this week he gets here with a Behemoth. In the third game against Cats, he was one of the difference makers for QoP. His ganks were successful, he put his team in a position to win the lanes and later in the games his Ultimates and his presence won the team fights.

Horspel - QsQ 357 : He carried his team to victory against unZ, playing terrific on both maps. He finished the first one with a flawless record of 10/0 on Dark Lady, to get the Annihilation on the second map with Pandamonium.

CaKeS - ClanMilk : Ganking is not the easiest thing in HoN, ganking is tricky, requires timing, coordination and sometimes a little bit of luck. CaKeS absolutely mastered that craft on the first map against fnatic, dishing out punishment all over the map. It came to a time were he took out H4nn1 twice in the timeframe of a minute, keeping his opponents in check and himself on top.

Honorary Award

The Admins

It's not an easy job to do, you have to juggle different interests of different parties and you have to remain fair, calm and unbiased all the time. Even worse, it is a job that gives you heat and not a lot of recognition or love. Still, the Admin staff of this tournament is doing a really good job so far, handling the whole Pikachu/Nineties dilemma as well as keeping the integrity of the event intact. Their stance on the forfeit issue is absolutely remarkable and the right step towards the unprofessionalism of some teams. To reach the group stage and then just forfeit all their matches should not get you the $250 USD, that's not the spirit of competition, that's not good for the tournament, that's just wrong. Heads up to Phil 'The_Thrill' Haller and his stuff on their ruling towards those forfeits.